ACCESS LABS: Youth-Led Accessible and Smart City Innovation

Access Labs: Youth-Led Accessibility & Smart City Innovation is an Erasmus+ KA210 Youth project that empowers disabled and non-disabled young people to actively contribute to making urban services more accessible, inclusive and user-friendly.

The project addresses accessibility challenges in urban life that go beyond physical barriers, such as inaccessible digital information systems, lack of user-oriented guidance tools and limited channels for young people to share feedback with local authorities. Instead of focusing only on awareness-raising, Access Labs introduces a youth-led innovation cycle where young people are positioned as co-designers, solution developers and active stakeholders in local decision-making processes.

Within the project, young people work together with municipalities, accessibility experts and technology-oriented organisations to identify urban accessibility needs through field research and user experience mapping. These findings are transformed into concrete digital and physical solutions during hackathons and co-design sprints, including accessible information systems, audio guidance tools, smart urban elements and low-cost inclusive design prototypes.

Selected solutions are tested through pilot implementations in real urban environments. User feedback is collected directly from disabled young people and other city users, and solutions are refined accordingly. The project also creates structured dialogue spaces where young people present test results and policy recommendations to local authorities, strengthening youth participation in urban governance.

A key outcome of the project is the Youth Accessibility Innovation Toolkit, an open-access resource that includes methods, tools and practical guidance for youth organisations and municipalities to run accessibility-focused design sprints and hackathons. Through international cooperation and dissemination via SALTO networks, the project aims to ensure that its results are transferable and applicable in different local and European contexts.

Access Labs strongly aligns with Erasmus+ priorities on Inclusion and Diversity, Youth Participation and Digital Transformation, offering a sustainable and replicable model for youth-led accessibility innovation in cities.